FIRE-BRICK WORKS AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.
The arrangement or plan upon which a fire-brick works should be built is of the first importance. Any person con versant with the business will notice in traveling through the different parts of the country and inspecting the various plants, the varied styles adopted, and not unusually the entire absence of arrangement and the many disadvantages under which the proprietors of such works are laboring, and which disadvantages might have been obviated. This is in some degree due to the fact that in the first instance a small plant only was contem plated and built, and not making any provision for extensions. In the erection of a new fire-brick works, the first subject re quiring attention is the amount of capital at disposal. This question having been satisfactorily settled, one-third of that amount should be set aside as working capital. In default of this precaution you commence with difficulties, and continue to labor under them until your credit is gone. The works shut down, some other persons come in and buy them at about one third the cost, and reap the advantages you had anticipated. Our trade papers reveal this fact in almost every issue.
The next point is to get a plan drawn, not just of the works you propose to build, but considerably larger, and particularly as regards dry-floors and kilns ; taking also into account stock room for clay and brick for an increased output. You can then build as much of the plant as your capital will permit or circumstances justify, so that as your business is a success and you see your way clear to extend the works, then you can carry out a further portion of your original plan. In following this course, your works are convenient and uniform. You should always in the first instance put down your machinery, including engine power, in excess of your present requirements, to be prepared for this extension. The usual way is to calculate how little horse-power you can manage to do with, and, when you make an extension, engine and boiler will be sold at a sacrifice to make room for a power plant of larger capacity. The differ ence or loss between the latter and former policy would build a new kiln or dry-floor.
In drawing plans for a new works, in order to secure every convenience and economy in labor, you must arrange your plant so that your material always travels in one direction ; that is, from the clay-bank to brick in car or stock-house ; thus clay-bank, mill, moulding side of dry floor, pressing side of dry floor, kilns, railroad, stock-house—a straight line would run t across each in the order named. The buildings containing the
engine and mills should be separate from the moulding-room, but attached to the same on the outside, so that the pug-pans will be in the centre of the outside walls. As it is not the ob ject of this book to advertise any particular machinery to the detriment of other makers, individual names will not now be mentioned. What we would say is, before you definitely decide as to the type and make, see the machine in operation in suc cessful works, then exercise your own judgment.
As to boilers, on no account buy a second-hand boiler, for, in risk, stoppages and repairs, it would probably be dear to you as a gift. In arranging to put down your boilers, allow room for the addition of one or more, as you find it necessary to extend your plant.
In deciding what amount of engine-power you require, there should be a surplus of at least one-third more than will ever be required. The engine-room should be entirely separate in order to keep out the dust. A great deal of the wear and tear of engines in fire-brick works arises from this oversight. As regards dry-pans, there is an equal difference in opinion as to whether it is best to drive them with under or over-gearing. In overhead gearing on framework of wood and iron, there is in variably considerable oscillation, resulting in loosening bolts and framework, and finally in breakage. Whereas, in under geared mills the bearings are short, and the strains are less in consequence, the whole being more rigid and firm. The ob jection to undergeared mills is, that the driving-gear being be low ground-level, sufficient room is not left in the bottom for a man to get around to examine and oil the machinery. In nearly every case where under-geared mills are put down the engineer has to crawl or creep under as best he can, and he does this with the bottom covered with black oil, and perhaps some accumulation of water or dampness arising from imperfect drainage. This state of things in connection with under-geared mills is not imagination ; it is the invariable rule, and what is the result? The engineer goes under as seldom as possible, and then not to examine, but to reach as far as possible with the oil-can ; the toe at the bottom of the shaft gets hot; the machinery stands for it to get cool, and so losses continue re peating.